The disclosure relates to a support mechanism for an apparatus and, more particularly to a foot pad structure positioned at a bottom of an apparatus.
Typically, a plurality of foot pads have been disposed at a bottom of an apparatus to enhance the stability of the apparatus while resting on a carrying plane. In the conventional art, foot pads have been adhered to a bottom surface of an apparatus through an adhesive material. However, the adhesive material is likely to get damaged due to removal of the foot pads. As a result, the conventional foot pads cannot be reworked.
Moreover, according to the conventional art, at the bottom of the apparatus the bottom structure can be fixed through a fastening element, such as a screw. Although the fastening of the fastening element is reliable, the appearance of the apparatus, which is highly emphasized, is adversely affected. For aesthetic reasons, fastening of the bottom structure at the bottom of an electronic apparatus may be achieved by other than fastening elements. For example, to provide back beauty of a notebook computer, the structure of a host body portion of the notebook computer may be fixed through hooks instead of any fastening elements. In this case, foot pads may be affixed to a bottom of a host body portion of a notebook computer. The foot pads may be made of rubber and the like. However, fixing the foot pads through the hooks may be risky as one of the hooks is likely to fail some reliability tests, such as a free drop test and a shock test.
The conventional art further discloses affixing foot pads to a screw hole through a robust adhesive in order to cover a screw and the screw hole which are otherwise exposed. However, the adhesive is likely to get damaged because of the removal of the foot pads from a case. As a result, the conventional foot pads can only be used once and cannot be mounted and dismounted repeatedly such that the conventional foot pads cannot be reworked and are not reusable.